March is known for a bombshell or two in the FOIA world, usually stemming from some top-notch investigative reporter for Sunshine Week. But it doesn't get more bombshellier (that's a word, right) than the retaliation lawsuit filed last month by a FOIA officer who says she was forced out of her position at the City of Richmond for pushing back on what she perceived to be FOIA violations. We're keeping our head's down as the sparks fly, but we're still busy with the planning for our annual conference. Scroll down for information on panels, donors and how to register. Plus, take a moment to meet our worthy award winners for 2024.

Join us April 18 in Yorktown for our annual conference, which will feature a panel on AI and the open records process, a presentation on transparency at the General Assembly then and now, and remarks from the newly installed Librarian of Virginia. We'll also talk about FOIA filing best practices, hear the latest updates on consultants reports and electronic meetings, and there's a how-to on filing a FOIA petition to enforce rights under the statute.

Visit the website to register or become a donor, and to stay up to date with the panels and panelists as they develop.

The deadline to register is April 15!

VCOG's 2024 Laurence E. Richardson Citizen Award for Open Government will go to Alice Minium, and its media award winner is Tyler Layne of WTVR-TV.

Minium is a co-founder of OpenOversightVA, an organization dedicated to collecting data on Virginia law enforcement officers.

Layne, an investigative reporter for WTVR CBS 6 News in Richmond, has used FOIA to inform and bolster his coverage of several high-profile stories in Richmond.

Both will be recognized at VCOG's annual conference on April 18.

Five months after the Charlottesville City Council suspended online public comment because agitators took over a Zoom comment period by shouting Nazi slogans, another city Zoom meeting was disrupted, this time by unknown sounds coming from the Zoom broadcast. Instead of pausing the meeting for the in-person participants or muting all Zoom participants, the presenters changed the view of the Zoom screen to reveal the online participants, including the man who was naked and masturbating on camera.

The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press filed FOIA requests of the six Hampton Roads cities in its coverage area asking for expenses the cities paid for city council members last year. Among the records they reviewed were credit card statements. The General Assembly unanimously approved a measure initiated by VCOG that makes clear that a public employee or officer name on a credit card statement is not a "security control" that can be redacted.

The Montgomery County school system released a copy of the contract between it and a law firm the district hired to investigate the school's actions related to the death of two students. The contract, obtained by The Roanoke Times through a FOIA request, was redacted, though, to obscure much of a section tiled "Scope of Work."

The Spotsylvania County School Board voted to terminate an unnamed employee, following a closed meeting that not all members agreed to certify. Neither the employee's name or position was noted, nor was there open discussion or any indication of the cause for termination. The following week, after much in-fighting among board members about procedures and their opinions of one another, the board voted to remove the superintendent.

Liberty University may be a private institution, but under the Clery Act, it is still required to publish and distribute an annual campus security report and keep publicly available statistics on various campus crimes. In March, the U.S. Department of Education fined Liberty $14 million, which is three times more than the largest fine assessed to date, for Clery Act violations. The DOE said the university misclassified and underreported crimes over several years.

A Hampton firefighter who was fired in connection with his role battling a 2022 apartment complex fire that the Department of Labor eventually fined the city $20,000 over various violations, is pursuing a FOIA lawsuit against the city over the withholding of some records he asked for and the redaction of others. The former firefighter wants records as part of his attempt to get his job back through the grievance process. The city issued a statement where it "vehemently disagree[d] with the narrative" that it was intentionally violating FOIA to interfere with his efforts.

According to invoices obtained through FOIA by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Richmond general registrar hired his wife as a contractor and employed his brother as an election specialist. In response to another FOIA request, the registrar said his office did not have a policy on the hiring of family members.

Richmond City Council changed its rules governing public comment periods by saying that when signing up to give comment, speakers must give a "detailed and complete" description of what will be so the clerk will have "an understanding of which city agency the comments pertain to or affects." The policy also includes a provision not unlike what you see in doctors' offices these days regarding missed appointments: "If a person requests to appear before Council and fails to appear or fails to notify the Clerk of an intention to cancel by 12 noon on the date of the meeting...such person shall not participate in Public Comment again until...90 days from the day...that person failed to appear."

In a work session presentation, the superintendent of Warren County Public Schools told the school board that FOIA requests were interfering with the regular duties of the interim IT director and an assistant superintendent. He noted that the district currently did not charge for FOIA requests, but also noted that filling FOIA requests was not part of any WCPS employee's job descriptions.

The Warrenton Town Council voted 4-2 to release some of the information that Amazon had blacked out from its site plans to build a data center. Amazon redacted nearly 50 or 128 pages in its latest plans, including information on plans for "noise emitting equipment" and how power lines will be routed. Those in favor of disclosure said it was important to the health and safety of the town's citizens. Those against disclosure said the town council could deal internally with any concerns, and the town attorney said that even though the town could release the information, he added never seen a one do so. 

The Rockingham County School Board severed ties with its longtime legal counsel and hired a new firm, all in a closed meeting. The board chair insisted a public vote wasn't needed because the district didn't have a written contract with its previous attorney. “I know that we're going to have media scrutiny over this. But it's just trying to find us in something like ‘Hah we got ya,’ but you didn't get us in nothing. We didn't break any laws or policies," he said.

A move by a Loudoun County Public School Board member backfired this month when she tried to have the division turn the cameras broadcasting the meetings to show the faces of speakers. Since 2021, cameras are trained on the board members while speakers are at the podium. Instead of agreeing with the member to point the cameras at the speakers, the board voted to turn off the cameras altogether, leaving just the audio and closed captioning. The board has justified its policy as necessary to prevent political grandstanding. A committee agreed to review the board's public participation policy. 

The independent external review of the events leading up to and following the shooting deaths of three University of Virginia students in 2022 cost $1.5 million, according to records obtained by WVEC in Norfolk through a FOIA request. The university originally said it would release the report, but then reversed course, saying it didn't want the report to jeopardize the case being pursued by the Albermarle Commonwealth's attorney against the suspect.

An emotional meeting of the Powhatan School Board had to be shut down because the number of people attending exceeded the room's capacity, according to the fire marshall. Hundreds of people had crammed into the meeting room to voice their concerns about alleged racism within the schools. The meeting was rescheduled for a week later at a high school auditorium to accommodate more people, but the meeting still didn't run smoothly. Two people were escorted out the meeting by law enforcement and an argument erupted over whether someone who did not live in Powhatan could speak on behalf of a resident.

The Danville City Council adopted a new public comment policy that requires individuals who want to speak on non-agenda items to sign up by noon on the Friday before a Tuesday meeting. The city manager said the advance notice helps alert staff to issues that can be addressed before the meeting. Additionally, the city's policy says that once a person or group representative has spoken on a subject, they cannot speak on that same subject for three months.

A Hopewell chemical company connected to the 1974 Kepone disaster omitted information from its pollution permit about how much pollution it would produce. The company is required to renew its permit every five years, and the filing is made known to the public so community members can comment. However, in its 200-page permit, the company cited its pollution calculations as confidential business information. Advocacy groups have asked the Department of Environmental Quality to reopen the public comment period with the omitted information included.

The family of a man who was killed by a Chesterfield County police office while he was having a mental health crisis has been unable to compel the police department to release 12 officer-worn body camera video files; 764 photographs and videos; Incident report with 26 witness interviews and police statements; recorded officer interviews; 911 call; and other evidentiary and investigative data. The department says releasing the information would interfere with ongoing investigations.

A Chesterfield judge allowed a FOIA lawsuit brought against the county and the chief of county police to move forward. On the defendant's motion to dismiss, the judge said the police chief was an "officer" of the county and therefore a properly named party. On the defendants' demurrers -- where the judge has to decide if the plaintiffs have adequately pleaded a cause of action -- the judge said claims related to high fees and improper use of exemptions were OK to proceed to trial. In response to the plaintiff's claims that the county violated the spirit of FOIA by adopting a policy of always exempting certain requests for information, the judge said, "On its face the county's policy clashes with the policy of openness under the Act."

After almost a month of ambiguity over whether its superintendent was still employed, the Petersburg School Board finally announced that she was not. Since late February, the division said the superintendent was on leave, though the superintendent changed her LinkedIn profile during that time to say that she no longer worked for Petersburg. The school division has refused to release the superintendent's resignation letter, and prior to admitting that the superintendent was no longer employed, the board chair raised the prospect of seeking a restraining order against a reporter who was asking him questions in a public area of his workplace.

In an attempt to rein in late-night or all-night meetings, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors adopted a policy to adjourn meetings at midnight unless a majority votes to suspend the rules.

After ruling in January that Augusta County had to turn over a recording a member of the board of supervisors secretly made during a closed meeting an, the judge in the case reversed himself on a motion for reconsideration filed by the county. “In the end, the contents of the recording, reviewed in camera by the court, establish that the closed session was an entirely appropriate personnel matter which should have been conducted in closed session, and the recording will not be provided to petitioners.”
 

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